Untitled Document
by Conigliomannaro
Summary: When the problem was just his addiction, he could still live through it; then the nightmares came, then the broken bonds, then dark shadows looming upon him and the people he loved. Every time he closed his eyes, Wonderland was waiting. "Please, Axel," Roxas said, fright in his voice. "Never let me sleep again."


**Title:** Untitled Document (aka the kraken)  
**Progress:** 0/8  
**Pairing:** AxelRoxas  
**Rating:** NC-17 (T for this chapter)  
**Trigger Warnings:** drug abuse, mentions of sexual abuse, mentions of child abuse, mentions of alimentary disorders, mental illness, depression, suicidal tendencies, general politically incorrectness, slut bashing, occasional slurs.  
**Disclaimer:** The characters belong to Disney/Squeenix; story by me and betaed by **neffectual**, with **morphia**'s help.  
**Little AN:** Please read the full disclaimer; this is a very dark and triggering story and shouldn't be read without a full warning beforehand.  
**_This story is very much above the rating allowed on this site, so I will only post the prologue_ **-which is a lot tamer than the rest of it -** _over here_**. On my profile, you can either go to Ao3 or Lj and read the rest. Ff . net has a history of deleting my stories, even the ones I thought were mild enough to stay up, so i don't wanna risk it posting the rest of this since I know it's definitely over the line.

* * *

**Prologue.**

_Your guardian angel is blind, harmless against the darkness.  
When he cries, something inside you breaks, cuts and tears.  
The Reaper bleeds with a joyless grin._

Do you remember the day you lost your mind?

There was the taste of dirt, at the beginning of it, and tears streaming down his cheeks. Roxas, face down into the dusty road, sobbing pathetically while trying to hold still, and Seifer straddling his back, spitting in his hair and pushing his face against the ground. Seifer yelling, snarling.

Freak.

Murderer.

Monster.

Leech.

Leech, leech, _leech._

There was the taste of dirt, at the beginning of it, and the smell of dust and chemicals from the carpenter's store, a few doors down the road. Roxas, four years of blond curls and small chubby hands, forced down onto the dust and the mud where anyone could see, where anyone could hear, and all he could do was cry. He cried, little hands balled into fists and pounding against the ground in frustration, while Seifer rained insults and spit on him, pulled his hair, ground his face against the dirt. Roxas didn't know why Seifer was always so angry, he didn't know why he was always so vicious, especially with him; he only knew that Seifer couldn't let a day pass without pushing him in a corner, shouting bad words at him, and beating him, beating him until Roxas' skin was as blue as his eyes.

At the beginning of all his nightmares, when he was a child, was the taste of dirt, and Seifer's cruel smile; his angry fists and his vicious hatred.

Roxas never grew up to be very tall, that's true, but when he was a child, he was just really tiny. He lived in a very posh mansion at the end of a dirt road, framed by tall wisteria branches spreading around and across the gates to his family's garden – or better yet, park – that hid his house from view. The town he lived in wasn't small, but it had seen better days; it wasn't particularly rich, and Roxas ended up not having many friends: his parents were very rich, and the children of town were often very envious, very bitter about his wealth.  
When Seifer sneaked his way through wisteria branches and slid between the metal bar of the gates, Roxas' parents never had anything against it; Roxas was always so lonely, all alone in that big, huge old manor, that having another child over had to be a big deal, for him.

At first, it was; but it rotted soon.

Seifer didn't like him – he didn't like many people at all – and soon enough, Roxas developed a pavlovian response to either his sight or his smell; Seifer didn't want to play – he was too old to play with Roxas – only came in to taunt him, to boss and push him around, beat him up. Roxas was tiny, was young, hadn't stepped out of kindergarten yet, so he didn't understand most of it. There was this older child, who was nearly in middle school, and this older boy came to his house, shoved his face in the dirt, spat at him, called him monster. Killer. _Leech_.

And Roxas didn't understand.

His nightmares all began with the taste of dirt, awoke in him a subtle quality of fear, a bone chilling brand of fright that sent a creeping anguish seeping into his veins; they had him holding still in the bed, breath withheld unconsciously, until the apnoea broke the terror and sent him startling awake in a whirlwind of flailing limbs and panicked, panting breath. From his childhood on, that nightmare followed him like a faithful and unwanted guardian, sowing his nights with frightening ghastly presences in the darkness; Roxas didn't know, but in a few years those dreams would dig up from his subconscious all the feelings of guilt and horror he'd be trying to repress, once his sin would be uncovered. His dreams wouldn't leave, but would morph with his body, would grow up with him.

Every time Seifer came into his dreams again, fed him dirt and pushed his tears-sticky cheeks against the ground, Roxas' entire body locked down and his breath broke. He woke up with a short shriek of horror, because Seifer called him killer, murderer, leech, and at the beginning, Roxas didn't know why.

He was eight, when he found out.

* * *

Roxas coughed against the filthy water, squirmed and tried to yank his small, petite frame out of his captor's grasp; one, two, three times. He was able to tear himself away just when his hair was soaked, the toilet floor a mess of splattered water and Seifer laughing, hand still on the flushing button. His right hand man rose from the floor where he had been crouched, more than a little water splattered on him as well, and Roxas crashed against the door, pounding his tiny fists against it and hoarsely shouting for help; the locker rooms were deserted, as was the gym beyond, and nobody heard or answered.

"Do you wanna know why I call you leech?" Seifer hissed, a cruel grin on his face, while the other boy grabbed Roxas by his arms tugging them behind his back. Roxas flinched on reflex, eyes prickling with tears while he shrank against the boy behind him, expecting a blow to hit him in the face; it was a surprise, when it was Seifer's breath that washed across his cheeks, smelling of soda and the cigarettes he insisted on pretending to smoke in front of the older kids. Roxas let blue eyes slide tentatively open again, took in a shaky breath. Seifer looked like he was enjoying this, sideways smirk and all, and Roxas was more scared than usual, because this had never happened before. This was a diversion from the norm, and he was scared, scared scared scared, because he was just in second grade and he was tiny, and Seifer and his friend were in seventh grade, and they were so much bigger, and there were _two_of them. "I think you're old enough to know why, now." Seifer insisted. "Want me to tell you?"

Roxas sniffled, unsure, and nodded once. Seifer gave a smug smile and leaned closer to speak a low whisper in Roxas' ear, voice laced with amusement:

"There used to be two of you," he said viciously, "You fed on your own twin."

Roxas blinked in confusion, looked up with wide, disoriented eyes. When Seifer and his friend walked out of the bathrooms Roxas was curled up in a corner, shaking and thinking that, after all, he had got off the hook easily, this time.

* * *

Roxas thought about Seifer's words all day, in class; he had never had a twin. His mother often said she would have liked to have another baby, for him to play with and for them to love, but it never came. He had been the baby wonder, the little miracle, the sweet little fighter: a very fierce bout of pneumonia nearly killed him right after he was born, and he survived by what had always been considered a stroke of luck. He had always been treated like a gift from the heavens, and given anything he wanted: the only wish he wasn't granted had been, actually, the little brother – or sister – he always asked for. So he was positive. He had no twin.

And even if he had had one, saying that he 'fed on it' made no sense whatsoever; as if mum would ever let him do _that_.

He didn't have the courage to ask Miss Aerith; his teacher was nice, was kind and patient and knew many things, but what would she think, if he asked? What if he really did something bad, what if she thought badly of him? It was useless to spread the word around, and his best call would be to try and ask mum, because she would of course know, and never tell anyone.

When he did, Roxas saw something in her eyes – in the sharp gasp she let out, in the parting of shocked lips – that dug inside of him.

So it was _true_. He _was_ a murderer.  
But _how_?

* * *

It had been even too easy, to feed his fantasy until a few mean words spoken by a bully became an obsession. Once he cornered his mother, once she confirmed that yes, the first scan had detected two little lumps of existence in her womb, Roxas stopped listening. His mother spoke calmly, pulled him on her lap and stroked his hair while she spoke. She told him how sickly and physically weak she had always been, and about how, sometimes, things just happen – even bad things – and it's nobody's fault. She told him that her body hadn't been able to carry both the children to the end, and that he had been the only one strong enough to live through. She had been pregnant together with Seifer's mother, she told him, so that's why he knew about Roxas' little unborn twin; she had never told him, before, because it would have been just sad, useless and cruel. Did he understand what mummy was saying?

_No,_ Roxas thought; _You did not tell me because you hate me, because I ate your baby,_he looked up, and his mother was smiling. He couldn't gather the courage of speaking out loud. "Yes, of course," he said instead.

Mum held him close, but was it enough?

"Do you want to ask more questions?" she asked. Her hold on him was as tight and warm as usual, but Roxas thought he could feel her going stiff against his back, and wasn't her breath shaking a little bit? Wasn't that just a sign that she was holding back?  
His mother hated him. His mother hated him because he had smothered her other little boy.

"No, mummy," he answered. He wanted to apologize, but he was afraid that, if he pursued the matter, she would lose it, admit she didn't love him, tell him that she hated him. He wasn't strong enough to go through something like that; he loved his mother.  
She seemed to somehow have understood what was going through his head, though, and a moment she was holding him closer, taking him in a warm hug.

"You haven't fed on the baby", she said, and Roxas began to silently cry against her shoulder. "He simply didn't make it. You know you're the light of mum's eyes, don't you?"

Roxas nodded, but deep down he didn't believe her words. How could she love him, after what he'd done? His brother wasn't there, and he was. Maybe he did smother him. He was so sorry. He was so, so sorry. For a moment, he thought that he would have died right on the spot, if that meant giving mum back what he had stolen from her.  
Maybe he had done it on purpose – who knew? – maybe he was a killer. He had bad thoughts, sometimes. He fantasized about hitting Seifer on the head with a rod, sometimes, until he was covered in blood and didn't move any more, so why shouldn't he have killed his brother?

"Yes, mum" he said instead. She never had to find out. "I know."

* * *

As many other things in his life, as soon as he expressed a grain of interest in it, a gigantic computer appeared in his bedroom. He had heard somewhere something about some new thing called the Internet, and when he asked, his parents activated a new line for him to connect without hogging the phone. Anything, for the baby miracle. Anything the little prince wanted, and Roxas came to resent those gifts. They hated him – they had to – so every gift was a lie, every good word was deception. And what was he supposed to do with that Internet thing, anyway?

It was all text, and the images were simple and over saturated; it hurt his eyes soon, and generally seemed pointless, useless. Then, one day, he found a page about animals – seals, to be precise – and realized that it was like a big, scattered library. He could research things, learn stuff. He could research his own condition, see if it existed, if it was real. He could find out if, in the end, he had really fed on his baby brother.

He spent inordinate amounts of time scanning medical sites, books and libraries, scientific articles scattered across the pixelated expanses of the dawn of the Internet; he didn't understand most of what he read – he wasn't a teenager yet, after all – but at some point he stumbled upon something that seemed somewhat connected with his research, and devoured it in a state of frightened awe. Even its name was fucking terrifying.

The Vanishing Twin Syndrome.

Rather common, he read, in multiple foetus pregnancies, it was an event that occurred when one or more of the living beings in the womb simply slowly faded, stopped growing and were _absorbed_by the other living foetuses until nothing was left.

When Roxas realized that Seifer was right, and that he really had consumed his poor little brother, he was twelve.

Seifer had never stopped taunting and bullying him, but now Roxas knew that what Seifer said was the truth, a truth anyone could hear and find out about, and it froze his bones from the inside with fear.  
People could never know. People could never hear of it.

And Roxas had to make sure nobody did.

* * *

He didn't have a real part in the solution of his life-long problem. He didn't push, plot, thread or pull to have Seifer's mouth shut. He just began to look at him obsessively, following him around making sure not to be seen.

He watched.

He waited.

He learned.

He probably would have never had the courage to do anything about it, eating dirt and spitting blood until he'd grow up to be tall enough to fight back or until Seifer lost interest in him, but something finally happened. What Roxas would have never had the courage to do, one night of mid winter came to be on its own, under Roxas' ever-watchful eyes. Roxas had no role, in the accident that saved him and his secret from Seifer's heavy curse, except for the role itself of his very own absence. He didn't lift a finger – he did not – and that was his first sin.

Seifer had drunk too much, that Saturday night. He did it often, and Roxas had made a habit of following him, wishing himself to finally _act_, wishing things to finally _happen_; he stayed away, eyes on the stumbling boy, following him into the school courtyard. He kept his eyes trained on him, feeling both hateful and guilty, scared and angry. Then, a duck shuffled about in the darkness, caught Seifer's attention, and he clumsily stumbled toward the ducks' pond. Nobody was around, nobody could see. Roxas did nothing to push him into the water.

Yet, a second later his prayers were answered, and the older teenager fell with a pathetic squeak – something that may have actually been a broken laugh – face first into the slimy water. He stumbled about for a little, body numb with intoxication and cold, and Roxas' heart was beating frantically in terror. Seifer would die. He would die, he would drown. Roxas could save him. He could drag him out of the pond and save him, and he would be a hero, and maybe Seifer would stop picking on him.

Maybe. But Roxas couldn't be sure.

And Seifer would always _know_.

* * *

Seifer, that night of December, accidentally tipped himself over the edge of the ducks' pond; nobody pushed him, nobody saw, and Seifer drowned alone, in a cold winter night, in ten inches of greenish water.

He hadn't even turned seventeen yet.

Nobody saw Roxas' small and dark shadow flee the scene, when the last bubble of dying breath broke the surface of the muddy water in the pond; nobody could ever pin or blame nothing on him. He was innocent.

Roxas slept a lot better, at night, from then on.


End file.
